Apple Butter

I just so happen to work with a very talented Jam-maker and I recently helped her out by making her logo & designing her packaging/labels, and for payment, I get jam!... Not too shabby! You can check out Jess' Jams here - she's started up a little blog, and she sells at local farmers markets, etc. She is also gluten free.

She just made a DELICIOUS batch of Apple Butter that has the perfect amount of spice - and is perfect for the fall weather that is suddenly upon us in New England.

This might be my new favorite of hers... although, I've been obsessed with the Raspberry Orange Prosecco jam. YUM. I would have shared a pic of that, but we burned through that jar quickly...

Smoothies

My husband and I are trying to get back into shape now that the fun of summer is coming to an end. It's fall-ish weather here already in the Northeast and I love it! I'll miss summer, but for some reason with the summer being SO busy and every weekend planned, it's nice to be home a little more and fall back into a routine (no pun intended)....

We haven't belonged to a gym since last April, so we joined a new one (woo hoo!) and are watching what we eat (ABS Diet style - we did this before, it worked, so we're back on it --- and it's really easy to adjust for gluten free with this).

My favorite part is bringing smoothies back into our lives!

While I generally am an egg person in the morning, I like mixing it up. Especially since we're trying to work out before work - so a smoothie is the perfect thing to mix up and have pre-workout.

This one pictured above (with my super fun straw) included:

Frozen strawberries
Frozen mango
1 banana
0% fat greek yogurt
GF whey protein powder, vanilla flavor
splash of low-sugar orange juice
splash of 0% fat milk
ice cubes


YUM

Mariposa Gluten Free Bakery

After my unfortunate pizza experience in San Francisco, the next day I was lucky enough to be down at the Farmers Market at the Ferry Building for work. I remember someone telling me about Mariposa a while back, and went inside to look for it. Didn't take long, it's a small-ish kiosk right in the middle (they mentioned they're moving soon to a new location in the Ferry Building).

I was like a kid in a candy store. EVERYTHING is gluten free - pastries, breads, bagels, SANDWICHES, cookies, brownies, etc etc!!!

It was really hard to decide. I should really have filled my purse with goods, but I only had room to get a few things, and found out they deliver, so we've all got that goin' for us.

I had a Blue Bottle Coffee in my hand, and thought that a Cinnamon Roll would go quite well with it...
Ummmm - yeah. IT WAS AMAZING. I should have bought every single they had and brought them home with me. Delicious, moist, great flavor. Perfect size.

Then I saw they had little bags of pre-made sandwiches, so I had to grab one of those. IT WAS ALSO AMAZING. The bread was fantastic - soft, perfect texture, not crumbly at all, not chewy - just good. I had one that (I think) had arugula, red-pepper spread, salami... Can't quite remember, meant to take a picture but was too excited about the sandwich & grabbed these two shots with my phone:
I also got a little bag of bagels - 2 per bag. I think they were multi-grain. Also very good... Not the best ever - but excellent flavor, not too crumbly.

All in all -- if you are in San Francisco and you are gluten free you MUST go to Mariposa! I linked to their website again, here it is again --- they also deliver. I'm sure it's expensive to do that. I may order for a special occasion -- otherwise, my friends who live in San Fran will be getting calls from me to bring me home goods when they're back east :)